Ah! No, you're right - the pumpkin is the generic name for the plant and the fruit! You can't get the fruit until you've had the flowers - it's fascinating watching the flowers (both male and female!) grow, then once pollinated the baby pumpkin behind the female flower swells and swells and swells and you get (if you're lucky) a pumpkin. :-)

Why not? Do you live in a flat with a balcony? If so, you can use plant pots / hanging baskets (they're good for trailing strawberries). If you have a flat without a balcony / house without a garden, you can use your windowsills for smaller things like maybe a tomato plant or two.

You can always find room somehow! (Unless you have a house with no windows, in which case my creativity would probably lead me to make a hole in a wall or something!)

I suspect your housing assoc is thinking more along the lines of rats/badgers/foxes, which you really don't want hanging round (despite foxes being cool!)

Look for a dwarf variety of tomato if you decide to try them - the non-dwarf ones can be rather large! Try looking for the red Robin variety if your space is really limited. Um, what else can I say?

Sow 2-3 seeds per pot. If you want a continuous harvest, try sowing one pot every other week - that was you won't get a glut of fruit. They'll typically take 3-4 months from seed to fruit. They will most likely need feeding with a specific tomato feed once every other week from germination until you pick the fruit. You can impress your friends with your tomato growing skills! :-D

As you might've guessed, I'm all for people growing their own food, and tomatoes are possibly the easiest thing you can grow. I suspect you could, given the right supports for the plants, ie some indoor trellis, even try growing dwarf peas Tom Thumb indoors.